"It would be difficult," writes Bertrand de Moleville, "to paint the disorder, fermentation, and alarm that prevailed in the capital during this dreadful day. A city taken by storm and delivered up to the soldiers' fury could not present a more dreadful picture. Imagine detachments of cavalry and dragoons making their way through different parts of the town at full gallop to the posts assigned them; trains of artillery rolling over the pavements with a monstrous noise; bands of ill-armed ruffians and women, drunk with brandy, running through the streets like furies, breaking the shops open, and spreading terror every where by their howlings, mingled with frequent reports of guns or pistols fired in the air; all the barriers on fire; thousands of smugglers taking advantage of the tumult to hurry in their goods; the alarm-bells ringing in almost all the churches; a great part of the citizens shutting themselves up at home, loading their guns and burying their money, papers, and valuable effects in cellars and gardens; and during the night the town paraded by numerous patrols of citizens of every class, and even of both sexes, for many women were seen with muskets or pikes upon their shoulders. Such is the exact picture of the state of Paris on the 12th of July." To add to the alarm, a letter which had been intercepted from Marshal Broglie was printed and circulated through the city, in which the marshal wrote to the Prince of Condé that the greater part of the National Assembly were hungry wolves, ready to devour the nobility; that with fifty thousand troops he would quickly disperse them and the crowd of fools who applauded them.[150] As the sun went down and darkness enshrouded the city, the tumult increased, and the night was passed in sleeplessness, terror, and bewilderment. All were apprehensive that the dawn would usher in a dreadful day. A report of the agitated state of the metropolis was carried to the Assembly at Versailles, exciting very great anxiety in the minds of the patriots deliberating there. The nobles rejoiced. They earnestly desired such violence on the part of the people as should compel the king to restore the ancient order of things by the energies of grapeshot and the bayonet.[151] M. Bailly, a man of unblemished character, whose purity and whose patriotism never can be questioned, gives the following testimony to the integrity of Louis XVI.: